s before you the shadow of
Omnipotence; and a great voice seems to proclaim the Godhead of Him "who
hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven
with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and
weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance."

The road was comparatively solitary. We passed at times a waggoner, who
was conveying the produce of the plains to some village among the
mountains; and then a couple of pedestrians, with the air of tradesmen,
on their way perhaps to a Swiss town to seek employment; and next a
cowherd, driving home his herds from the glades of the forest; and now
an occasional gendarme would present himself, and force you to remember,
what you would willingly have forgotten amid such scenes, that there
were such things as armies in the world; and sometimes the long, dark
figure of the cure, reading his breviary to economize time, might be
seen gliding along before you, representative of the murky superstition
that still fills these valleys, and which, indeed, you can read in the
stolid face of the Savoyard, as he sits listlessly under the broad
easings of his cottage roof.

Anon the evening came, walking noiselessly upon the mountains, and
shedding on the spirit a not unpleasant melancholy. The Alps seemed to
grow taller. Deep masses of shade were projected from summit to summit.
Pine forest, and green vale, and dashing torrent, and quiet hamlet, all
retired from view, as if they wished to go to sleep beneath the friendly
shadows. A deep and reverent silence stole over the Alps, as if the
stillness of the firmament had descended upon them. Over all nature was
shed this spirit of quiet and profound tranquillity. Every tree was
motionless. The murmur of the brook, the wing of the bird, the creak of
our diligence, the voices of the postilion and _conducteur_, all felt
the softening influence of the hour.

But mark! what glory is this which begins to burn upon the crest of the
snowy Alps? First there comes a flood of rosy light, and then a deep
bright crimson, like the ruby's flash or the sapphire's blaze, and then
a circlet of flaming peaks studs the horizon. It looks as if a great
conflagration were about to begin. But suddenly the light fades, and
piles of cold, pale white rise above you. You can scarce believe them to
be the same mountains. But, quick as the lightning, the flash comes
again. A flood of glory rolls once more along the